


Nouvelle Vague

by eveyzonk



Category: GLOW (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Professors, F/M, Glow AU!, Hot Sam Sylvia Professor, Ruth x Sam, Ruth/Sam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:27:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28019253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eveyzonk/pseuds/eveyzonk
Summary: Ruth is a cinema student at UCLA and everything seems normal, until one day her film history professor goes missing and strange new professor arrives: director Sam Sylvia. What will happen? Will Ruth's normal dreamy life crumble when the professor will put everything she thought she knew on the line? And what are those butterflies in her stomach!?
Relationships: Sam Sylvia & Ruth Wilder, Sam Sylvia/Ruth Wilder
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	Nouvelle Vague

##  Nouvelle vague  
  


* * *

“If you’re here because you want to learn from someone how to make a good movie, get the fuck out.”

The spiky voice of the new professor shook the whole room into silence. Ruth slowly closed her notebook and saw a 50ish man throw his leather case on the desk and light up hastily a cigarette. 

A girl in the first row coughed a fake cough.

“And if you aren’t into sharing the burden of cancer with me,  also get the fuck out .”   
The girl left the room.    
“Good. I’m Sam Sylvia, filling in for Mr. Constantinides. Greeks are terrible workers, loud eaters and inconclusive talkers.You have me now,  _ hurray _ . You got luck. Or maybe not. ”

There was an embarrassing silence. 

“Why Mr. Constantinides isn’t here, sir?” asked Ruth, raising her hand. 

“I don’t fucking know, okay. It’s shocking enough having to get up a 8 o’fucking clock in the morning to teach a bunch of teenagers that their glorious dreams are gonna be shit by their 30s.”    
Ruth nodded slowly, blue eyes wide. 

“Too aggressive? I know, give me time.” He snorted “Adrian is sick, which means he is spending the month in some wooden bungalow on the beach. Lucky bastard.” He raised his eyebrows above the frame of his harsh glasses and took a drag. 

“MOVIES!” he exclaimed all of a sudden, moving his hands in the air and blowing out some smoke. Ruth saw some italian roots in the gesture, maybe? She was having mixed feelings about the man. He seemed angry, but also creative, and...rebellious. Exciting.    
Mr. Constantinides was clever, and incredibly analytical. She liked him. He always listened to her feedbacks and made her feel part of the lesson. 

“What makes movies so great? What makes a movie a real life experience for the public?” He waited a few seconds “Any of you little Ford-Coppolas know that?” 

“Pain?”

“Uooooh-uooh, I said Coppolas not fucking Bergmans. Yeah you, blue eyes, you talk again, have my permission.” 

“Stories?” said Ruth.

“Now we’re talking.” He looked at her with great determination. She felt as if something in his stare was challenging her. It made her feel vulnerabile, in a way. Excited. 

“You don’t have a valuable story until you have to say the word “but”, until you can say the words “instead”, and “suddenly”. You have no dramatic tension until that. And what the fuck is a movie without tension?”

“A french one?” said a curly guy sitting near the smart naive girl. A few other students chuckled. Sam immediately looked at him. He seemed arrogant and narrow-minded, also he obviously wanted to impress him. He didn’t like the guy. 

“What’s your name?”

“Russell.”   
“Okay,  fucking  Russell.  _ Ascenseur pour l'échafaud _ , Louis Malle, 1958. How to glue the fucking public to a film narrating events happening in just one night, spent in an elevator. Go watch it and let’s see if you’re still making fun of european cinema just to look cool.”   
Russell was quiet after that. Ruth looked at him with a “I feel sorry” face on. 

“Maybe all of you should watch it. Maybe...maybe that’s...ehrm… homework. For the week. Or… I don’t know, next class, next time! You should be able to find it somewhere in the archive. Subtitled. I don’t expect you all to understand something that isn’t average teenage english.” 

He extinguished one of the too many cigarettes he smoked in just those 20 minutes. An embarrassing silence hang around. He sat down at his desk for the first time, and looked at his new students cryptically. 

“It’s a bye-bye, I guess. Lesson’s over. I’m tired, this is more exhausting than set. Gosh. Get out! Get the fuck out, I wanna spend the rest of these 50 minutes in silence.”

***

It was hard to get to study at UCLA. Ruth really left behind all she was, all her old Omaha life, and moved, her suitcase full of dreams, as they would say on Broadway, to LA. She was a waitress in a smelly bar in the Uni area, now. Her parents were not so happy when they found out that she got accepted to that particular college, but Ruth was exploding with happiness. She thought she deserved it.    
Well… work was tiring, and she almost never slept, just to study everything correctly, but  _ hey _ ! 

She was living her dream. She even got to be 1st assistant on a small, independent movie set. The director was always throwing chores her way, and the pre-production was a pain, but she loved every second of it. She felt just like Audrey in the first scenes of Breakfast at Tiffany's: constantly tired and hangover. But full of life!

And… It was good for her to be constantly working. It kept her mind busy, away from the whole Debbie situation. 

_ Oh god, oh no, I don't want to enter pity mode.  _

But she did.

She was walking fast to the bar, late for opening. And now she was thinking about her best friend, and how much she missed her, even her bitter remarks on her fashion style. 

_ What would Debbie think of the new professor? _

Ruth laughed at the thought.  _ Pervert _ , Debbie would say. And weirdo. 

Yeah. The portable debbie voice in her mind was not so wrong after all.

He  was  a weirdo. His lesson only lasted 20 minutes, and there were more swears in it than a full day working in the bar. But in a charming cynical fun way.

And he was mean to Russell...

In a completely cool way…

Oh and he was old….  _ Butnotsomuch _ ! 

Oh gosh...

Ruth.

Ruth! We are  _ not _ having a crush on a mean director. Not now. Not now that we have a  _ normal  _ relationship with a nice guy. Nice Russell. Good Russell. 

Why, oh, just why. Did she smell his irresistible scent of self pity and violent self defence mechanisms form her seat in the classroom?

She felt strange. It was a strange day. She opened the bar and went to change her clothes.  _ Hopefully I won’t have to see him for a whole week and this stupid thought will slowly die in my head.  _

***

Louis Malle’s movie was something else. Ruth sat in the campus’ cinema, all by herself, watching that. Her big eyes began swelling with tears, watching Jeanne Moreau walking, alone, in Paris, knowing that her lover was never to show up. 

  
Maurice Ronet, stuck in the elevator, could not fight his destiny.    
Yes, it was french. It was so very french, and that made it beautifully subtle. Sometimes she had the impression that while american movies tried to scream their meanings at the audience, european ones were able to bury theirs within lines and actions. That was… elegant, and refined and exquisite. Two human beings, separated by a single event, understanding their loneliness. Was there anything else to say? Was it even worth to make cinema after that? A 1958 movie she didn’t know the existence of until the day before? She was crushed.

Ruth cried, and she felt glad to be alone. 

And as Miles Davis played his trumpet with melancholy, she lifted her knees to her chest. 

“He improvised the whole score while screening the film. Pure genius if you ask me.” 

Ruth jumped in her chair. Professor Sylvia was sitting behind her, and was now hunched towards her seat. The girl’s big blue eyes turned to look at her professor, surprised. 

Sam, who just saw her tears, smiled an understanding smile. A… human one, too, as if to say  _ It’s okay for me to see this, you’re crying for a good reason, young lady _ . 

Then, he returned to his seat. And continued enjoying the movie with her.

Fifteen minutes later, after one last line, full of hurt, and love and nostalgia, the word “Fin” was shown on a black screen and, just like that, the movie was over. A chill moved up on Ruth’s back. 

Then, just after about five minutes of pure silence, she was reminded of her professor’s presence in the semi-dark room. She turned and saw him. He looked emotional, still watching the black screen, as if some kind of eternal truth was still impressed in it. A strong passion flickered in his eyes, for an invisible small moment, then turned to her.

“Don’t judge, okay. I get all mushy around these frenchies” 

She giggled “I think I get it, now”

His eyebrow rose slightly, “So you liked it?” 

She nodded “I forgot my professor was sitting behind me while watching it. Yes, it was exquisite.”

“Yeah, sorry about that. Heard Ol’ Miles playing all the way in the corridor and couldn’t help myself.” His hands rose. Again, very italian. 

She giggled again. 

“So, you’re capable of appreciating real films when they show ‘em to you. Not just all those american-dream-romantic bullshit and russian drama”

  
Her eyes widened in surprise. How did he-

  
“Adrian told me. You’re the smartass of the class, I get it.” he lighted his cigarette quickly and took a drag, “but we’ll have to start from this...” he pointed the smocking stick to the screen “If you don’t want to become a chimp-hollywood-classic-script writer.”

She looked down. She liked being a chimp… hollywood classics script writer...

He got up, “I’ll see you in class… ?”

“Ruth” 

“Ruth. See ya’”

  
And just like that, Sam Sylvia was gone again. Ruth sighed. She had the feeling that something was going to change. And she didn’t like that. No, not one bit.

**Author's Note:**

> Author’s Notes  
> Hello fellow Glow fans! I wrote this months ago and just thought “yeah why not, I like this” so here it is! English is not my first language, but I’m trying to do my best. Any advice on that, like any weird sentence construction you read and stuff, would really help me get better!   
> I don’t know where the story will go, nor when I’ll be able to continue it.   
> Let me know what you think! 
> 
> Silvia (I know, I share that with good ‘ol Sam)
> 
> PS. Elevator to the Gallows, the Louis Malle film in the fic, is a real masterpiece. Also, it’s true what Sam says about Miles Davis: “He recorded the music with a quartet of French and US musicians in a few hours (from 11pm to 5am one night), improvising each number and allegedly sipping champagne with Jeanne Moreau and Louis Malle.” (IMDb).   
> Incredible, right?


End file.
